Ketchikan:EMBREE
LEADS KETCHIKAN'S DERBY AFTER FIRST WEEKEND - Not only did
Jessie Embree enter the first fish of the 63rd Annual Ketchikan
CHARR King Salmon Derby, her 39.3 lb king held the top spot through
the finish of the first weekend of the three weekend event. Embree
logged her entry in at the Mountain Point weigh-in station at
10:41 a.m. Saturday morning, and then watched as 914 other anglers
tried to push her out of the top spot through the rest of the
Memorial Day weekend.

Jessie Embree poses
with her family and her 39.3 lb king which holds the top spot
for the first derby weekend.
Photo courtesy Ketchikan CHARR King Salmon Derby

Embree's king was one of 255
kings turned in during opening weekend, 19 more fish than were
logged in during opening weekend of the 2009 derby. In order
to claim more than $10,000 in cash awarded to the angler that
turns in the largest king Embree will need a little luck on her
side ­ no derby winner has ever been under 40 pounds.

The 2009 derby saw Mark Tolfeldt jump ahead with a 44.0 king
weighed in during the first weekend, only to be knocked into
second place by Dan McQueen's 44.2 lb king on the last day of
the derby.

Sunny skies cooperated for some nice weather, although some anglers
complained at weigh-in stations about the wind. Both Clover Pass
Resort and Knudson Cove Marina reported some day two rental cancelations
because of choppy water during day one. - More...
Tuesday - June 01, 2010

Fish Factor: Gubernatorial
candidates talk fish in famed fisheries debate By LAINE WELCH
- "I can't get no respect," was a famous go-to line
for comedian Don Rickles. Candidates for governor gave their
take on how Alaska's seafood industry can get more respect at
Kodiak's famed fisheries debate last Friday, an election year
tradition for two decades.

Since 1990, the Chamber of
Commerce event has attracted 100 percent participation by candidates
running for Alaska governor and for seats in Congress. The hook
is that the two hour is broadcast live to over 330 Alaska communities
via public radio, as well as before a live Kodiak audience. There
is only one catch. The candidates are limited to a single topic
- Alaska's seafood industry.

Miraculously, gubernatorial
candidates Berkowitz, French, Parnell, Poe, Samuels and Walker
all made it to the island just as it became shrouded in fog.
The mood on stage at Kodiak's world class auditorium was congenial
and the "goobers" were clearly prepared and ready to
talk fish.

Underscoring the debate was
their recognition that Alaska's seafood industry is the state's
biggest employer, and it generates $6 billion to state coffers,
second only to Big Oil. But despite its economic and cultural
importance, the industry doesn't seem to "get no respect"
from policy makers. Here is a sampler of the candidates' thoughts:

Governor Sean Parnell (R):
"It's a fact of life that the fishing industry is underappreciated.
In part, I think it's because the population centers are not
commercial fishing communities. I think we can change that through
better awarenessTo me it is all about jobs and familiesWe have
promoted and increased funding for seafood marketing and for
research at fish and game. We are going to continue to fight
the federal government's overreaching...The bottom line is to
continue to work to build a sustainable fishery and thriving
coastal communitiesRespect comes from who we are as a people,
and whether we have those jobs and families taken care of."

Bob Poe (D): "It is true
that the fishing industry does not get the respect it deserves.
I think the reason is because you are widely distributed across
the state. You're busy working, not hanging out in the benches
in Juneau lobbying legislators. I think the legislators from
fishing areas do a pretty good job, but they have to confront
Anchorage and Fairbanks and other non fishing areas. It's often
we hear about paying taxes in Alaska, and I think we all know
deep down that we have it pretty good here. But the one group
that does pay taxes and really does pay their own way is fishing
You can't open a commercial fishery unless the funding is there
to do the stock assessments."

Ethan Berkowitz (D): "Fishing
is all about people. I think those who go to sea are some of
the bravest people I knowWe need to convey to Alaskans who don't
understand how much effort goes into putting food on our tables,
and money in the state coffers. We've got to make sure more Alaskans
understand what it means to put your life at risk just to put
food on someone else's table." - More...
Tuesday - June 01, 2010

The memo specified that free
use should only occur in inventoried roadless areas on the Tongass
and Chugach national forests when the public's needs cannot be
met in the roaded land base. It also specified, "When personal
use timber is collected from inventoried roadless areas, it shall
be done in a manner that maximizes the protection of roadless
character, wildlife habitat, recreation, and other values associated
with roadless areas."

Last fall Vilsack reserved
the right to approve any timber harvest in inventoried roadless
areas of the nation's national forests. This included personal
use timber harvest in Alaska. Personal use timber harvest in
Alaska is legally mandated by the Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act of 1980. - More...
Tuesday _ June 01, 2010

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Alaska, asserts that the federal
agency has violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation
Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act,
the Administrative Procedure Act and a Memorandum of Understanding
with the State of Alaska.

Among numerous actions aimed
at preventing the state from carrying out its plan to preserve
the herd, federal officials on May 24 threatened immediate criminal
prosecution of any state employees who would "trespass"
within the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, which covers
almost all of Unimak Island.

The state seeks a preliminary
injunction allowing the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in
June to remove seven wolves, the number determined by biologists
as necessary to merely maintain the caribou herd in its current
depleted condition while the lawsuit proceeds.

"The Fish and Wildlife
Service erected obstacle after obstacle over a period of five
months to prevent us from carrying out the state constitutional
mandate to manage our resources for the maximum benefit of our
people," said Governor Sean Parnell. "It's part of
a pattern in which federal agencies are usurping state prerogatives,
potentially constricting our future, and they're doing it while
violating their own rules and regulations, as well as their prior
agreements with us."

Unimak Island, the eastern-most
in the Aleutian chain, is home to the nation's only naturally
occurring insular caribou herd. The herd numbered 1,260 in 2002,
but has shrunk to about 400 animals. In addition to the two-thirds
decline in overall population, the bull-to-cow ratio is now about
5-to-100, the lowest level ever recorded in Alaska, leaving about
20 bulls on the island. - More...
Tuedsay - June 01, 2010

My first house was in need
of major renovations. Boy, did my father and I suffer when we
improved the bathroom.

The project started well enough.
We tore down the old wall tile and put up wallpaper and a tub
surround. We repainted, then put down a new floor. All we had
to do to was reinstall the commode.

The bolts that had secured
the toilet to the floor had both broken. The hardware-store guy
sold me a kit to reattach them.

My father spent an hour reattaching
the bolts. But as we attempted to fish the bolts through the
commode's bolt holes, we discovered they were too short.

"Son of a ... !"
said my father.

"The idiots gave us the
wrong bolts!" I said.

I raced to the hardware store
and bought longer bolts. My father spent another hour getting
them in place. We were finally able to reattach the commode.

But another problem arose:
the wax goop that seals the commode to the sewage pipe wasn't
thick enough to seal anything.

"Son of a ... !!"
said my father.

"The idiots gave us the
wrong goop!" I said.

After another visit to the
hardware store, our third attempt to secure the toilet succeeded.
But we needed to reattach the water fittings. - More...
Tuesday - June 01, 2010

Columns - Commentary

BILL MAXWELL: A
handbook for making a difference in your community - Once
in a while, I discover a book that makes a difference. I recently
read such a gem, Paul Loeb's "Soul of a Citizen: Living
with Conviction in Challenging Times." Loeb recently spoke
with me by telephone from his home in Seattle.

"Soul" is the result
of 35 years of Loeb's work examining the psychology of social
involvement. It shows how ordinary citizens can do extraordinary
things by making their voices heard and by making their actions
count in a time when apparent hopelessness is all around. "Soul"
examines how people get involved in larger community issues for
social change, and it shows what stops people from getting involved
and what makes them give up.

Take the example of Virginia
Tech student Angie De Soto, who was the poster child for apathy.
She was so uninvolved in events around her that she spent the
night of the 2004 election chugalugging instead of voting. Later,
after becoming outraged over assaults on the environment, she
became interested in global climate change and created a groundbreaking
environmental sustainability plan.

We are taught that a successful
democracy needs an educated electorate. Loeb takes it a step
further, suggesting that more than education is needed.

"In the personal realm,
most Americans are thoughtful, caring, generous," he writes.
"We do our best by family and friends. At times we'll even
stop to help another driver stranded by a roadside breakdown,
or give some spare change to a stranger. But too often, a wall
separates each of us from the world outside, and from others
who have likewise taken refuge in their own private sanctuaries
-- what we call the gated community of the heart.

"We've all but forgotten
that public participation is the very soul of democratic citizenship,
and that it can profoundly enrich our lives."

Loeb contends that many people
do not get involved in causes and issues because they believe
that they must be experts or must be as eloquent as Gandhi or
the Rev. Martin Luther King. He points out that Gandhi himself
said that engagement does not require perfection. Early in his
career as a lawyer and long before he became famous, Gandhi was
so shy that he could not utter a sentence when he argued for
his clients in court. He lost all of his cases. After Gandhi
discovered the right causes and got engaged, he found his voice,
and, well, the rest is history. - More...
Tuesday - June 01, 2010

Commander-In-Chief
Went AWOL By Donald A. Moskowitz - As a Navy veteran, I am
appalled President Obama, our Commander-In-Chief, did not lay
a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National
Cemetery on Memorial Day 2010. Instead, he went on vacation.
-
More...
Tuesday PM - June 01, 2010

Library
Location By Chris Elliott - It would be interesting to know
what the community's reaction was when the new high school was
built at the top of that huge hill "out the road" (Fourth
& Madison). -More...
Tuesday PM - June 01, 2010

Gulf
Oil Spill By A.M.Johnson - Just a thought. Do you suppose
that Cletus and Barney, a couple of rednecks, hold the solution
to cleaning up the oil spill? - More...
Tuesday PM - June 01, 2010

Slow
moving vehicles By Kim Morton - Just wanted to post a rant
about the slow moving eclectic golf carts that I have ran into
out south and now out by Wal-Mart. I am pretty sure these cars
need to stay in town and seeing them driving down the road when
it's supposed to be 50 mph is frustrating to say the least. -
More...
Tuesday PM - June 01, 2010

Illegal
Immigration Healthcare Costs Affect YOU! By Elizabeth Lee
Vliet, M.D. - The national spotlight is on Arizona for doing
what the Federal government and previous Governor Napolitano
refused to do: rein in an invasion of illegal aliens bankrupting
our state (Arizona). At an August 2009 healthcare Town Hall in
Phoenix, legislators said that more than half of Arizona's
4 billion dollar budget deficit was the result of paying
for three areas of services to illegal immigrants: education,
healthcare, and incarceration. - More...
Tuesday PM - June 01, 2010

Oil
Spills as an Opportunity... By Donald Lee Struthers - What
an opportunity. With the April 2010 oil spill situation in the
Gulf of Mexico comes several opportunities. - More...
Friday - May 28, 2010

Dungeness
By Chris Snyder - There is something very telling in Mr. Gossman's
letters regarding the summer dungie fishery. Apparently he thinks
that a crab cares WHICH user group harvests him. This simply
is not the case. A crab is a fairly simple critter. He doesn't
have the ability to look around at the boat deck he is on and
say "sure am glad I got caught by this sport fisherman,
or retired visitor, or whomever instead of", gasp!, "someone
trying to make a living". - More...
Friday - May 28, 2010

Location
of Library By Rita Leighton - I understand the library needs
more room - but wouldn't it be much simpler to just move the
museum out to a different location - possibly somewhere next
to the cruise ship docks? There is a vacant lot between the Federal
Building & the Logging Show, and that would give the library
room to expand in its current, convenient location. - More...
Friday - May 28, 2010

FY2011
Capital Budget By Senator Bert Stedman - Governor Parnell
has indicated that he intends to veto a significant number of
projects in this year's Capital Budget. That would be a mistake.
- More...
Wednesday - May 26, 2010

Government
Regulation By R.K. Rice - DEROY MURDOCK's column "Era
of unlimited government arrives" stated "Perhaps one
of the most important accomplishments of my administration has
been minding my own business," President Calvin Coolidge
told journalists in March 1929. - More...
Wednesday - May 26, 2010

Tax
Heroes By Michael Spence - I have read with great interest
the stream of letters coming to Sitnews about our high taxes
and how to avoid them. - More...
Monday - May 24, 2010

Parking
Carnival By George Miller - Can you hear the calliope music
as the parking carnival gets underway? Do people working downtown
set an alarm clock so they know when to trot about looking for
a place to park, thus possible avoiding the inevitable ticket?
Is it worth ten bucks to not miss a sale during the season, and
just roll over and pay? - More...
Monday - May 24, 2010

Great
Library Site By Gay D. Peters - The best place to have the
new library is Copper Ridge. I drive and it's almost impossible
to find a parking space and now there will be plenty of spaces
available. - More...
Monday - May 24, 2010

Library
By Robert McRoberts - Over the last few years living in Ketchikan,
I think our Borough government has been improving -- maybe from
knowing and liking most all working there. With that said, I
feel the city is just nuts. Why do we need this library? Where
is your planing here? you have no place to build it, no thought
at all in the area you select for the site. You get a good deal
on the site, but what is the site? Have you dug holes yet? Yet
that area is under development. It's going to have some kind
of construction activity there for 30 years. Go ahead, put people
out of work so you can have quiet. The only good thing I see
about putting it there is the jail can let people check out books.
- More...
Monday - May 24, 2010

Dwindling
Fish Stocks By Carol Baines - It's estimated that seven out
of ten people on the planet depend on fish as their primary source
of nutrition. According to the experts, at the rate the seas
are being degraded due to over-fishing and pollution, in approximately
40 years there will be no more fish. This all spells trouble
--- a catastrophe for our future generations, our children and
grandchildren. Fish provide roughly 40 per cent of the protein
consumed by nearly two-thirds of the world's population. For
example, over a billion people throughout Asia depend on fish
and seafood as their major source of animal protein. Here in
Alaska we have enjoyed our salmon, halibut, red snapper, et al.
and don't want to see the stocks diminish or be contaminated.
- More...
Monday - May 24, 2010

Recent
posts regarding pool By Zig Ziegler - I appreciate Sitnews
and the forum it provides for healthy discussion of our community's
issues. I truly appreciate it when there is disagreement amongst
posts that remains civil and to the point, rather than a personal
attack, while addressing different opinions. - More...
Friday - May 21, 2010

Do
Not Participate By Lloyd Gossman - Please do not participate
in the sale or purchase of Dungeness Crab caught by Commercial
fisherman during the summer in Southeast Alaska. This fishery
is scheduled to open June 15th, 2010. - More...
Thursday PM - May 20, 2010

RE:
Dopey Mushers By Dale Albertson - Well all be! WOW! Would
someone please inform John that users of "dope" of
this sort does not produce hallucinations? Talk to almost all
street cops John, they would much rather deal with a person influenced
by THC, which is the active ingredient in Cannabis, than to deal
with a drunk. The person on "pot" there I said it,
just gets the munchies and wants to lay down and go to sleep.
Drunks are seldom non-violent, cause many accidents and deaths
annually. I have dealt with both types hundreds of times in my
many careers going back to early 70's, and the results have never
differed except for the amount of violence one person can perpetrate
on another when drunk. I have never in my long career had to
deal with a violent pot head. Oh, and no I am not nor have I
ever been a user of pot. I have observed a person on pot function
and be a contributing productive member of society, and am always
amazed, having been fed the same falsehoods you seem to have
latched onto. - More...
Thursday PM - May 20, 2010

Re:
New Pool By Chris Barry - Poor silly people. Do you honestly
believe that if something benefits you, that it benefits the
community as a whole? You need to wake up. I have never said
I oppose replacing the pool. I understand it is needed for many
activities in this community and that the current facilities
would be too costly to repair correctly. - More...
Thursday PM - May 20, 2010

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